Diego Costa needed just one shot to open his account in the 2018 World Cup. The former Chelsea man slammed home the equaliser against Portugal and notched again in second match vs Iran.
He now has three goals at the world cup, only one less than Cristiano Ronaldo, and has been touted as one of the favorites to win the golden boot in Russia.
This comes at a time when Brazil is struggling to score goals at the tournament. They were held to a 1-1 draw by Switzerland and scored two goals against Costa Rica in injury time.
So why is the Brazilian-born forward not playing for the country of his birth? Costa was born in Logarto, Brazil in 1988 and had a number of unsuccessful trials with local clubs. He attracted the attention of super-agent Jorge Mendes, resulting in a move to Europe with Braga – and the start of a career which would see him become a Premier League and La Liga star.
The forward never actually played for the Portuguese side, but after moving around a number of clubs in Spain settled – and then excelled – for Atletico Madrid. In September 2013 the Spanish FA made a request to switch Costa’s international eligibility from Brazil to Spain, as he had been granted Spanish nationality in July of that year.
Costa wrote a letter in which he expressed a desire to change, but was criticised by CBF judicial director, Carlos Eugênio Lopes, who called the move ‘purely financial’. Costa’s switch was granted and he made his debut on March 5, 2014, just months before the World Cup in Rio. Since then he has gone on to net 9 goals in 20 caps for Spain.
Diego Costa’s journey from the poor city of Lagarto in north-east Brazil to become one of the World’s best strikers stands now as one of modern football’s fairy tales. Just how hard that journey was, and the scrapes he endured along the way, were vividly brought together by the Spanish journalist Fran Guillen in his biography of the Chelsea striker, Diego Costa: The Art of War.
Friends and former team-mates told Guillen how Costa went from a teenage truck driver working with his uncle in Brazil to one of the most-feared strikers in the Premier League. He came to Europe as a raw, boisterous 16-year-old, and via loan spells at four different clubs, one brief move to Real Valladolid, as well as surviving a cruciate ligament injury in 2011, finally got his chance at his parent club Atletico Madrid.
He would take [to football training] his neighbour Mario Cesar, who was speech-and-hearing impaired. “Diego insisted on bringing along this kid,” says Flavio Augusto Machado, his first coach. “I wasn’t happy and I said so. Mario just couldn’t understand what I said, but Diego was always there to translate for him.”
Only when he was 16 was Costa scouted by the small-town second-tier professional club, Barcelona in Ibiuna, Sao Paulo state. Costa: “There was no infrastructure, no resources in the town where I grew up.”
Team-mate Eugenio Gonzalez: “I remember how passionate he was about football. Training wasn’t enough for him and he used to play with his mates on the university pitches at 11pm. I said to him, ‘Diego, you can’t keep doing that’.”
His teammates at Atletico Madrid also reveal another side to the striker . He once mourned painfully when he accidentally killed his dog.
Atletico team-mate Paulo Assuncao: “Diego brought his Yorkshire Terrier to Madrid but one day when he was parking and didn’t realise the dog was behind the car, he reversed over it. He was devastated, totally depressed for a month. When I asked him why he was so low he practically broke down. ‘I can’t believe it. I killed my dog. He came out of the house to greet me and I didn’t see him and I ran over him.’”
Costa has also been revealed as a champion of the vulnerable in society. While at Albacete, he refused to be train until the club paid its staff.
Albacete medical assistant, Manolo Bleda: “The club decided to pay the players but not the rest of the staff. When he heard that, Diego refused to train until everyone was paid. In 35 years I have never known anyone else take a stand like that.”
Eduardo Rodríguez Vellando, the Albacete club doctor: “One day the president came into the dressing room. He was going round everyone shaking their hands. Diego waited for his turn, and then kept his hands by his side and asked if the kit men had been paid. ‘I’m not shaking your hand until you pay them,’ he said.”
His teammates say Costa is a man that holds no grudges. Valladolid team-mate, Alberto Marcos: “Diego’s old school – what happens on the pitch, stays on the pitch. He can have a bust-up with you and be close to killing you and then, a few hours later you’re having dinner together. It’s like he steps into another world when he plays but he never leaves the field looking to get even. He just doesn’t hold grudges.”
Brazilians were not happy with Costa decision to switch allegiance to Spain in 2014. A Slogan at car dealership in the Brazilian state of Ceara read : “Unlike Diego Costa, this car is something Brazilians can be proud of”.
But back in his native Lagarto, the decision was celebrated with a fireworks display… cars blared their horns. People wore Spain shirts.